New EU workplace noise regulations have thrown orchestras “into a tailspin. They are spending tens of thousands of pounds consulting acoustic engineers and compiling complex databases, installing noise-reducing screens and buying earplugs for their players.” The regulations were meant to protect factory workers from excessive noise. “The irony is that for orchestras noise is their business.”
Author: sbergman
Can A Cultural Capital Rise From The UAE Desert?
“Abu Dhabi earns an estimated $25m a day from oil, and has between 40 and 100 years of oil left. And with these bottomless pockets, it is buying culture… But can money alone create culture in the desert?
Visionary Eclectic Or Crossover Disaster?
In North America, the composer Osvaldo Golijov is frequently hailed as the greatest composer of his era, and his eclectic style is seen as representing the future of classical music. But in Europe, Golijov is far less celebrated, and many critics have attacked that same eclecticism. The composer himself doesn’t seem to mind the strangely divergent reactions to his work.
Is Vancouver Thinking Small Again?
A controversial sculpture depicting an upside-down cathedral, which has held a prominent place in a Vancouver park for the last 2-1/2 years, is to be dismantled after complaints from neighbors. The decision “has rekindled debate on the role of public art in a city that yearns for world-class status but often succumbs, in the eyes of critics, to small-town thinking.”
Tony Showdown Throws Spotlight On An Old Argument
“The coming showdown between [Broadway revivals of] Gypsy and South Pacific is going to rip open a long-simmering dispute between commercial producers and nonprofit theater companies. The commercial producers, who take big risks with their investors’ money, bitterly resent competing for Tonys against subsidized theaters. Some producers privately say they’d like to ban the nonprofits from the Tony Awards.”
France Moves To Prop Up Struggling Art Market
France’s culture minister “unveiled a plan yesterday that includes zero-interest loans for art buyers, more tax breaks for corporate art buyers, and measures to free up strict regulations on the auction business. While France’s museums pull in millions of art viewers, French auctioneers and gallery owners have long struggled to attract art buyers.”
The Mysterious Power Of Norma
“No glare is more searing in the operatic world than that which beats down on the opera Norma… The title character’s music is early 19th-century bel canto – great stuff – with vocal lines as intricately woven as lace. The soprano/mezzo-soprano duets can be especially thrilling. None of this, however, quite explains why the opera’s infrequent productions are greeted with such profound reverence and reality-defying expectation.”
A Poet Showcases His Art, Even If His Mind Won’t Go Along
Poet Reed Whittemore recently published an illuminating memoir, and has been conducting readings at bookstores to promote it. But Whittemore “is also 88 years old, with a memory that has betrayed him. Vascular dementia is the culprit, and it sometimes leaves him confused as well. Friends and family stand by to read in case he can’t.”
The New Kids On Broadway’s Block
James Gardiner and Nick Blaemire are just 23, but the show they wrote together last year, Glory Days is about to make the leap to Broadway, and the two showbiz kids are on the verge of theatrical stardom. “They are young enough for you to entertain troubling thoughts about misspent youth when you consider what they’ve already accomplished.”
Faster Visa Process For Artists Could Be On The Way
“The House of Representatives voted this week to speed up the visa approval process for some foreign artists and entertainers… Now, those seeking entry must run a bureaucratic gantlet that can include having to establish their artistic credentials, hire a lawyer, pay visa fees and visit a United States embassy or consulate.”